.......
When I started, I’d never seen a computer so infested with viruses, adware, and spyware. The computer had virtually come to a standstill. It took several days of diagnostics and cleaning before it was back up to speed and completely clean. I installed spyware killers and adware killers and two different virus checkers and killers. As well as a Mozilla browser and mail program. Everything hummed along very nicely after that. She was able to turn her computer on and just have it work.
And then, a couple of months ago, lightning struck (literally) and fried her modem and router. When it came time to set them up, she called Dell Computer. They informed her that she must remove all that third party software or they wouldn’t help her. She had to uninstall the adware and spyware killers. They didn’t like one of her virus protection programs. And, they wanted her to get rid of Mozilla.
.......
Thanks Dell. I cannot believe they advised her to stop protecting her computer. I cannot believe that her warranty would be voided because she had third party software on her computer. But that’s what they told her. I heard them tell her. No amount of arguing seemed to get through to them.
Her take on it? "I'll never buy another Dell."

Are you a "Jill," or perhaps a "Barry"? Wall Street Journal reporter Gary McWilliams discusses retailer Best Buy's strategy of targeting specific customers and encouraging others.

The spirit of the holidays continues today in Scranton.

First, there will be free parking downtown today. The break is part of an effort to draw more holiday shoppers to the city's downtown for Black Friday.

The implications of search breaking out of the PC box and making real time information available at the point of purchase has been discussed in plenty of places, I am sure, and probably with far more prowess than this simple scenario. It has also been the failed business model of several Web 1.0 companies. But somehow, with recent developments in local and mobile search, it seems much, much closer to happening now.

What might be the effects of such a system coming to fruition? For one, markets would have to compete far more on service, convenience, ambiance, and other non-price related factors. And vendors of products that have been made in third world sweatshops, or with factories that overpollute, or that support causes some consumers do not wish to support, would be called out in a far more transparent fashion. Refusal to participate in such a system would mean that vendors or merchants have something to hide, and as such, the system could be a major force for good in the global economy – forcing transparency and accountability into a system that has habitually hidden the process of how products are made, transported, marketed, and sold from the consumer.

Eeek. Just what we need. A "blog" devoted to "deals."

"Stealth" marketing at its google-rigging "best."

My name is Susan and I am a recovering Predictable Spender. I used to march off to the sales like a good lemming. I shopped the big stores, used the big plastic, as expected of me. A real mind-numbing experience. After I stepped back and realized how predictable I was and what it all meant, I formed my own 12 8 Step treatment program for Predictable Spenders. I know it's not easy to jump from strung-out hard core shopaholic to completely avoiding all the big convenient sales. I'd just like you to hear me out and consider this way of spending.

A response on this matter from Mona Williams, VP Communications for Wal-Mart, struck me as being deaf, dumb, and blind. Mona is quoted in the article as saying, "From PBS to 'South Park' -- it just shows you how much a part of the culture we (Wal-Mart) are."
I just don’t get how Mona can dismiss these perceptions of Wal-Mart. I’m much more of a believer in 'perception is reality' than 'any publicity is good publicity.'

Gore fans now have a GameCube controller that matches the mood of Resident Evil 4. The blood-spattered chainsaw-shaped controller has been made specially for the next outing of the zombie-bashing title. The controller has a loudspeaker built-in to supply authentic chainsaw sound effects while you work your way through the undead hordes. Made by Nuby Tech the controller is on sale now for $49.95.

COOLIDGE - Nobody predicted the Casa Grande Ruins could go down like this, that after hundreds of years of surviving the elements, standing as testament to a civilization that thrived in the desert more than 700 years ago, the adobe walls could crumble because of a Wal-Mart across the street.
But there they were, holes about the size of a half-dollar burrowed underneath the Great House, the signature structure at the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, 50 miles south of Phoenix. Squirrels are digging their way under the four-story building, threatening to undermine the structure's foundation. Squirrels have always been a part of the landscape here. But their numbers were controlled by coyotes that now stay away.
"Look around us," said Paige Baker, who became superintendent of the monument seven months ago. "We're completely encircled by development, and it took away the natural predators."
.....
Officials with the Casa Grande park saw problems with the Wal-Mart-sparked development across the street. But they did not foresee a squirrel infestation.
"I don't think anyone realized what the natural resource implications would be," said Carol West, the chief ranger. The development turned "these cute little rodent squirrels" into pests, she said.
Wal-Mart, the self-proclaimed low-price leader, is also the leader of unintended consequences. It has blinded consumers to the perils of its cost-cutting strategy, which includes pressure to move manufacturing jobs to China to cut costs. Wal-Mart is the leading employer in Arizona. But its wages are such that it is also the company with the most employees using the state's health care system for their kids.
It has undercut the foundations of society. Both this one and one from several hundred years ago.

Under pressure from the Chinese labor federation, the world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., said Tuesday it would permit branches of the official Communist Party-controlled union in its Chinese stores if employees requested it.

However, I've been thinking....

Something I've always wanted to do is an in-store "rave" (forgive me if I sound hopelessly old and out of touch, here). I work in a building attached to the SteamTown Mall and we go over there for coffee at least once a day (N.B. I drink the free coffee at work, and go along for the "exercise"). Abercrombie & Fitch, amonst others, is always blasting music far and wee.

I thought it would be an interesting reclamation of public space to go in and start dancing to the music — bring glow sticks, water bottles, etc.

Now, at WalMart, I'm sure we could crank the stereos in the stereo section.

Here are some more performance suggestions

Another victim of the "mandate".

Workers at hair salons, supermarkets, restaurants, discount stores, call centers, car washes and other businesses who have murmured only to one another about off-the-clock work are now speaking up and documenting the illegal practice.

In interviews and in affidavits supporting employee lawsuits, Ms. LeBlue and more than 50 workers from a dozen companies said they were required to do such unpaid work despite federal and state laws that prohibit it and despite recent lawsuits against Wal-Mart and other companies that have highlighted the problem.

[....]

Over the last year, the Labor Department has brought enforcement actions against several companies that required off-the-clock work, seeking back pay and demanding compliance. The agency has grown more aggressive after plaintiffs' lawyers filed scores of off-the-clock lawsuits, some resulting in multimillion-dollar settlements with prominent companies, including Radio Shack and Starbucks.

[....]

The NYT requires free registration. If this makes you nervous, try the BugMeNot solution: cypherpunks508 / cypherpunks.

A resurgent Kmart, home of the blue light special, is buying the once-dominant Sears department store chain in a surprising $11 billion gamble it is counting on to help both better compete with Wal-Mart and other big-box retailers.

Retail giants Sears and Kmart are enjoying higher stock prices after announcing a merger plan. The merger plan includes renaming many Kmart stores to Sears, but shoppers seem unenthused.

ForestEthics, a San Francisco-based environmental group focused on protecting forests, is hosting the "Victoria's Dirty Secret" event on Thursday, December 2nd, to kick off its new campaign to change the environmental practices of the catalog sales industry. Every year, catalog retailers send out about 17 billion catalogs, and essentially none of the paper used in the catalogs contains recycled content. Most of the trees used for catalog paper come from North American old growth forests, including Canada’s Boreal forest, which is the second largest roadless area on the planet -- the size of 12 Californias laid side by side. The ForestEthics campaign focuses on Victoria's Secret, which is one of the largest catalog retailers around, and certainly the most visible.

Tech blog Mavromatic reviews the new printed potato chips. Eeek.

Your game was made in an American Sweatshop.

Requires Windows Media. It's, ah, different.

FRONTLINE offers two starkly contrasting images: one of empty storefronts in Circleville, Ohio, where the local TV manufacturing plant has closed down; the other--a sea of high rises in the South China boomtown of Shenzhen. The connection between American job losses and soaring Chinese exports? Wal-Mart. For Wal-Mart, China has become the cheapest, most reliable production platform in the world, the source of up to $25 billion in annual imports that help the company deliver everyday low prices to 100 million customers a week. But while some economists credit Wal-Mart's single-minded focus on low costs with helping contain U.S. inflation, others charge that the company is the main force driving the massive overseas shift to China in the production of American consumer goods, resulting in hundreds of thousands of lost jobs and a lower standard of living here at home.

George Carlin's seven dirty words got him trouble three decades ago. Now his Pork Chops aren't going over well at Wal-Mart.
The nation's number one retail chain has refused to stock the funnyman's latest best-selling book, When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? And depending on who you're listening to, it's either a case of censorship or salesmanship.

"This is an election story. One year ago, I reported in an article from Rockford, Ill., that when heartland Americans are asked what they think is going wrong with America, "Wal-Mart" is one of the first words out of their mouths. "They pay their workers substandard wages," one factory worker told me. Interestingly, his boss hates them even more -- for the way they force manufacturing jobs out of the country in their too-ruthless drive to cut costs. Judy, another factory owner, who soon after I spoke to her lost her business, said it was a family values issue: "The moms that used to have a factory job with me and who go home at the end of eight hours . . . and take care of their children and have decent day care, now they're working two jobs at Wal-Mart with no health benefits."
And yet the Democrats are not in a position to capitalize on this sort of broad-based frustration with our nation's present Wal-Mart economy, because they are complicit in it. Here's one example: Hillary Clinton is a former member of the board of directors of Wal-Mart. She should not be able to get within spitting distance of a Democratic presidential nomination until she explains, if not apologizes for, her service on it.
For a party whose major competitive advantage over the opposition is its credibility in protecting ordinary people from economic insecurity, anything that compromises that credibility is disastrous."